Quality as Primacy of the Practical

Abstract

Cooperative inquiry involves four kinds of knowing. Practical knowing—skill—is a primary outcome assessed by four criteria, but its essence is an indefinable "knack." Aristotelian bias favoring propositional outcomes is evident in nonpositivist inquiry. But the action paradox—that we learn more about our reality when our primary intent is to change it rather than inquire into it—affirms practical primacy. The research format for skills outcomes is distinctive, and reports of such outcomes are secondary to portrayals. The social dimension of skills is a culture of competence that can become collectively self-transforming through variations of cooperative inquiry. A society as an extended cultureof competence can become self-transforming through three forms of peer self-help: yeast groups, learninggroups, and inquirygroups. For the initiating researcher of a participative inquiry, written outcomes may not be secondary to practical ones.